Marketing Strategy for Small- to Medium-Sized Manufacturers

Evaluating Sales Performance

Before asking companies to evaluate sales performance, the questionnaire asked about factors considered important to successful selling (Figure 79), whether inside sales or outside sales. Because of the diversity of company types—product companies, job shops and machine companies, and size—there was considerable variance in the responses. The top six items (making sales calls, responding to inquiries, gathering competitive information, following up on lost orders, gathering pre-sales information, and promoting to prospects and customers) were checked the most as Average Importance to Critical, in effect, indicating priorities for sales activities and a proxy for job descriptions for the sales force.

Figure 79. Factors ...